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Thursday, 7 May,
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■ 14 months for ‘high-end’ robberies inspired by ice...
$20,000 burglar
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A CRANBOURNE North man has been jailed over “high-end burglaries”, including a $20,000 ransack that cleaned out a Lynbrook home. Agim Abdi, 32, pleaded guilty in a court on Monday to stealing an array of items including passports, drivers’ licences, birth certificates, jewellery, business and personal mobile phones and laptops, a large TV and camera from the home on 5 August 2013. An ice-using Abdi told a police interview soon after the crime that he “possibly could have committed the burglary and not remembered it”. He told the interview he didn’t know the location of the stolen property - none of which has ever been recovered, Dandenong Magistrates’ Court was told. Sen Const Buschgens said DNA evidence from a blood sample found at a smashed window and on the ground at the home linked Abdi to the burglary. In a separate incident in March 2013, Abdi was detained by members of the public in a Berwick residential street after stealing envelopes from home mailboxes as well as drivers’ licences and user manuals from two Nissan vehicles. Abdi told police at the time he had just been collecting hard rubbish in the area. Police found ice, morphine sulphate and diazepam in clear bags as well as pliers, bolt-cutters, latex gloves, bandana and screwdrivers on Abdi’s person, the court was told. He was carrying bags containing suspected stolen items such as CDs, keys and handbags. He also pleaded guilty to taking part in a commercial burglary in Jells Road, Wheelers Hill, in which two jaws-oflife and trade tools were stolen and loaded into a stolen Hilux ute on 27 January this year.
He and two co-accused were arrested at the scene when their ute got tangled in a perimeter wire fence during their attempted escape. Abdi was found with one gram of amphetamine on his person. During a subsequent raid of Abdi’s house, Monash CIU detectives seized seven GPS devices, seven laptops, a silver watch, a City of Casey street sign, a passport and Crown Mahogany membership, personalised numberplates and a set of car and house keys. He claimed to police he didn’t know the items were stolen; the seized drug paraphernalia was for personal icesmoking. Abdi’s lawyer told the court that the the accused’s offending was funding his ice habit of up to half a gram a day. Abdi started using ice because he had felt lethargic in his construction work; he now referred to it as “the devil”. Magistrate Jack Vandersteen said Abdi - who had not complied with two recent community corrections orders since 2013 - would not get a third chance at a CCO. He noted the great inconvenience caused by the “high-end burglaries” such as replacing passports, drivers’ licences and birth certificates and the sentimental value of unrecovered jewellery. He said Abdi’s loyal parents, who arrived with Abdi as Macedonian refugees in 1998, had already gone through a “massive amount to get you here”. “Your parents are getting older, not younger. They don’t want to be spending their days watching their son in the dock.” Abdi was jailed 14 months - with a five-month non-parole period - which included 56 days already served in remand.
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By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS